The Complete Dark Web Black Markets Glossary - Rapid7
The Complete Dark Web Black Markets Glossary 1
Introduction Whether you’ve visited the Dark Web or not, you’re likely aware that it’s comprised of various anonymous forums and black markets. Many of these Dark Web black markets are used for illegal activities, like buying and selling drugs, weapons, confidential documents and illegal services. While you may not be in the market for any of these items, it’s important to understand how the Dark Web and its black markets work so that you can better protect yourself and your organization. To help you better understand the Dark Web, we have created the complete glossary of terms, slang and basic concepts that you would likely encounter while browsing the different categories of goods. We hope you find these key terms helpful and be sure to stay safe if you choose to visit any of these forums. 2
The Glossary A C Administrator: The person who is responsible for all the market’s operation, including hosting, daily server and website maintenance, collecting services and goods, accepting new vendors to thE market, and making sure that the vendors continue to supply goods. Carding: The practice of stealing and selling credit card information. Altcoin: Any digital cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. Astrid: Creator and Moderator of various Dark Web markets. Avengers: A group of individuals who were well known for ordering LSD from various vendors back in the days of Silk Road 1.0. This group would reagent test it, consume it, and write reviews about the quality of the LSD products. B Backopy: The Administrator of Black Market Reloaded (BMR). See below for BMR definition. Bitcoin: An open source, peer-to-peer payment network and anonymous digital currency being used for almost all transactions on the darknet. Black Market Reloaded (BMR): Black Market Reloaded was a onion hidden Tor website which sold drugs and other illegal goods. Buyers: Marketplace users that are not vendors. CD (Controlled Delivery): A technique used by law enforcement officers conducting surveillance to allow illicit drug purchases to go forward in order to secure evidence against the organizers of the illicit drug trafficking. Cirrus: A Silk Road forum moderator. Cipherspace: Tor hidden services, i2p, freenet, or any other anonymity network. Cold Storage: A secure offline wallet for your Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. D Defcon: The alias of the Silk Road 2.0 Admin. A person named Blake Benthall was arrested During Operation Onymous and is alleged to be Defcon. Dispute: This term is usually used to describe a disagreement between a buyer and a seller on the markets. Digitalink: AKA Jacob Theodore George IV, according to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Digitalink was the first vendor on Silk Road selling illegal drugs to be arrested. Domestic: A term that refers to making an order from a vendor that resides in the same country as the buyer. 3
Donations: You will encounter many requests for them on the darknet markets, which will usually list a Bitcoin address to send a donation. Exit Scam: A term used to describe a situation where a market administrator or a vendor wants to retire, and is doing so while taking as much money as possible from their buyers. Dread Pirate Roberts: The pseudonym used by the administrator of the original Silk Road market. It has been speculated that more than one person may have been using this pseudonym, but “Ross William Ulbricht” was identified by the FBI as being the only owner. F Dream Market: Dream Market was a popular dark web marketplace operated on a hidden service of the Tor network. The marketplace sold a variety of content, including drugs, stolen data, and counterfeit consumer goods. E Emergency BTC Address: An address to be held on record to send all funds to in case of a market shut down. This would ideally be a cold storage address with no information that could be used to connect the owner to their identity. This address would only be checked after a market was shut down in order to recover outstanding funds. Escrow: The use of a neutral third party to ensure that a transaction payment will be made to a seller on completion of items sent to a buyer. Generally after a purchase is made, the funds are held ‘in escrow’ to be released when the buyer states the seller has met the terms of the purchase. Generally the third party will also offer arbitration in case of a dispute between the two parties. Electrum Plugin: Used on The Marketplace to create multi-signature transactions with the click of a button. FE (Finalize Early): This is the release of escrow funds before the seller knows that the conditions of the contract have been met. This is used to reduce seller risk from BTC price fluctuation, and against market shut down. This is also used to scam buyers because after the escrow has been released, there is no recourse for the buyer if the seller does not deliver on their promises. Feedback: A message left from a seller to the vendor, or vice versa, about how well a transaction went. It is considered good form to not reveal any information about the methods the seller used to ship the order nor the vendor’s or seller’s location or details. This is made publicly available to allow users of a site to determine if they should trust the vendor or seller. Flush (Curtis Green): An individual the FBI accused Dread Pirate Roberts of ordering to be murdered. This person is also accused of being ‘Chronicpain’ from the Silk Road Forums, and an employee of Silk Road. Freenet: A peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication. G Grams: Cross marketplace search engine for the Dark Web. 4
H Hidden Service: A term for a onion domain name. It can only be accessed through the Tor network, and cannot be seized by a government or law enforcement agency. Honeypot: A type of hidden service or other website setup by law enforcement in attempt to attract and trap people who participate in illegal activities. Hushmail: An email provider used by many Dark Web users that focuses on privacy and uses industry standard protocols PGP and 256-bit AES encryption. It claims to be secure to the extent that not even company employees can read the contents your emails. Hushmail is known to cooperate with law enforcement by handing over encrypted emails. Hidden Wiki: A “hidden service” website on the Tor anonymous network that allows for open editing of subjects related to hidden services and activity in them. Hub Forums: An Onion-based platform for cross marketplace discussion, like the Dream Market forum or sub reddit, these forums are usually fully anonymous. I International Delivery: Dark Web purchased goods that are delivered outside of one’s own country. Some avoid international transactions because customs adds time and risk to an order. Some countries (such as Australia) are known for having customs that are extremely hard to get an order past. IRC (Internet Relay Chat): A communication system allowing the easy transfer of textbased messages. It is intended for group discussions in sessions called channels. IRC channels are often used by black markets vendors to provide an update on an arrival of new goods or important massages. L LE / LEO’s / LEA’s: Law Enforcement / Law Enforcement Officers / Law Enforcement Agents. Libertas: Pseudonym used by one of the original Silk Road forum administrators, and also used by one of the administrators of Silk Road 2.0. Libertas was arrested by the “Garda Siochana” (Irish police). Litecoin: An alternative cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin. The key difference is that while Bitcoin uses hashcash-SHA256 2 as the ‘proof of work’, Litecoin uses hashcashScrypt, which is designed to use more memory and be less subject to custom hardware designed to solve the problem quickly. LocalBitcoins: A site designed to allow over-the- counter trading of Bitcoins. Famed for its anonymous nature, people who sell on the site have been under constant pressure to avoid being prosecuted as unlicensed money traders. This extra risk and the extra work generally cause a significant price difference between the site and a more open (and regulated) exchange. Love Letter: An official confiscation notice from the postal service sent to the recipient letting him know that his parcel was seized. In some cases, vendors send fake love letters to create the false impression of a seized package and scam the buyer. Lucyskyhigher: A Reddit community that features an informative and largely humorous gathering place for all dark web markets. 5
M O Marco Polo Task Force: A multi-law enforcement agency task force based in Baltimore that was put together to investigate the Silk Road. This task force eventually included investigators from the FBI, DEA, DHS, IRS, U.S. Postal Inspection, U.S. Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Onion Browser: A web browser like the Tor Browser Bundle (TBB). This web browser is designed to work with the Tor network to browse hidden services and normal websites anonymously, without leaking user information. Marketplaces: Catch-all term for websites set up to allow trade between vendors and buyers. When used in the context of selling illegal goods, these usually provide anonymity to the buyer and seller, a method of escrow to ensure reduced risk from new vendors and sellers, and a method of advertising goods to be sold at a price so that a purchase may be initiated and paid for without involvement from the seller. Most markets are also set up as ‘hidden services’ under anonymity networks like Tor, i2p, or Freenet, although there do exist some ‘clearnet’ markets that operate over standard HTTP/HTTPS. OpDarknet: A campaign launched by Anonymous a couple years ago that targeted child porn sites and black markets, attempting to take down these sites and expose the moderators. Monero: A newer, more privacy-focused cryptocurrency that’s being accepted by some Dark Web black markets. Multi Signature Escrow: Where an address is signed by both the buyer and the seller with their private keys. The buyer will send funds to the address and the seller ships the product. If both parties are happy, they sign off on the address and release the funds in escrow. N NDD: Next day delivery. Onionland: A general term to describe Tor hidden services. Operation Onymous: A global crackdown on the darknet markets during November 2014, in which many sites were seized and several people arrested. Optimus Crime: The Admin of HackBB. P PGP (Pretty Good Privacy): Introduced in 1991 and formalized with RFC 2440 and RFC 4880, PGP uses a combination of public-key and symmetric-key cryptography to ensure that messages can be delivered without a third party gaining access to the contents of the message. It also allows for a message to be signed so that the author of the message is indisputable. Many different algorithms can be used for the encryption, but the most commonly used methods are RSA for the public key crypto, and AES for the symmetric cipher. It is extremely important that the public key of any party be fully verified in order to know that the message is being delivered to the correct recipient or is from the correct sender. 6
P2P Escrow: Most commonly used to refer transactions using ‘P2SH’ addresses as defined by BIP 016. A public key is provided by a seller, market, and vendor, and used to create an address which requires two of the three parties to sign in order to redeem. The buyer then pays to this address. The ‘redeemScript’ is extremely important because it details the information needed to redeem funds sent to the address, which is a hash of the redeemScript. The goal of this method is that no one party has enough information to take funds from these P2SH addresses. Even if the market is hacked or taken down, the funds cannot be seized, and a buyer and seller can, with the redeemscript, finalize a transaction outside of the market’s involvement if they choose to. PIN Code: Personal Identification Number Code. Used as a secondary validation method to protect against loss of funds if the username and password are discovered. Generally it is only asked for during the transfer of funds outside the market or to confirm and finalize orders. PM / DM: Personal message / Direct message. Processing Time: Time required by a market or vendor in order to complete a transaction. Generally this involves waiting for sufficient confirmations on the blockchain to ensure a deposit has been met, or to run funds through a Bitcoin mixer on the market. Also used for the time required by a vendor once getting a transaction to put the goods and send it via the mail services. Project Black Flag: A market set up shortly after the fall of the original Silk Road. Widely suspected to be a scam, this was confirmed to be the case after a short period of time. R Resolution: Used when there is a dispute between abuyer and seller. This usually involves whatever market was used to serve as an arbitrator to determine how funds are to be released from escrow. Reviews: The corpus of feedback left on a site, along with more information gained by outside channels. Used by buyers to determine if they should take a vendor or buyer as legitimate. Ross Ulbricht: Accused by the FBI of being the sole owner of the pseudonym ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ and the creator of the Silk Road. He was an Eagle Scout and a known libertarian. The original Silk Road website went down after his arrest. RTS: Return to sender. S SSBD (Same Same But Different): Pseudonym for Peter Phillip Nash, who was arrested and accused in Australia for being one of the Silk Road moderators. Samples: In the context of a market, a free or low-cost item sent to a well-known buyer in order to establish legitimacy. This proves that at least the seller has access to a product and is capable of delivering it in as secure way. The receiving party is expected to leave public feedback regarding the quality of the products and how well it’s been packaged. Scammer: One who would attempt to defraud either a vendor or seller. For a vendor, this can simply mean not sending products, sending poor quality or misrepresented products, or ‘selective scamming’. Selective Scamming: A scam technique where known individuals are sent products, but large transactions or those from unknowns are not sent out. For a buyer, this will mean that they claim to have not received goods that were delivered or that the goods were of poor quality/misrepresented. 7
Sheep: This dark web market disappeared without a trace, taking all funds in escrow with it. Despite the manhunt that followed, it remains unclear if it was a deliberate scam, a result of being hacked, or a combination of the two. Stats (Buyer): Statistics used to determine the legitimacy of buyers or sellers. Common stats include the number of successful transactions, average reviews, and dollar amounts of successful transactions in total. These are usually imprecise in order to avoid anybody being profiled. Shipping: Process of a vendor packaging and sending goods. This is extremely difficult for vendors, and how many have been caught. The most effective methods will appear to be individual packages and correspondence from legitimate businesses. It is considered poor form to disclose any specifics of a shipment made, as it could be used to target a vendor. T Shilling: Creating accounts on Reddit / Forums for the sole intention of posting positive / negative posts about someone or something while trying to make them look authentic. SIGAINT: Tor-based darknet email service that allows you to send email without revealing your location or identity. Its name is derived from SIGINT (“Signals Intelligence”), which refers to intelligence-gathering by intercepting signals. Silk Road: “The Original Ebay of Illegal Goods”. First reported to a wide audience by Gawker in June, 2011, it flourished due to a large vendor and user base, and strict controls to weed out scammers. The site was taken down after the arrest of Ross Ulbricht at the start of October 2013. While it was not the first nor the last market for illegal items, none have matched its popularity and trust level among both vendors and users. Silk Road 2.0: The successor of the first Silk Road. This site was seized during Operation Onymous, and Blake Benthall, the alleged admin of the site (who went by the alias Defcon), was arrested. Tony76: Was a trusted vendor on the original Silk Road, then ran a massive “FE” scam. The FBI accuses Dread Pirate Roberts of placing a hit on the individual using this pseudonym. He scammed a large number of Silk Road users, but his true identity and the details of if he was killed or not are still in dispute. Torchat: Instant Messaging service that works by having each user set up a ‘hidden service’ that can be used to contact them via Tor. Somewhat similar in purpose to OTR, but messages do not have plausible deniability. Tormarket: Another market to rise and fall after Silk Road’s demise. Not as big as Sheep, but the timing made many very cautious about the reliability of new markets. Tormail: Tormail was a Tor hidden service that allowed users to send and receive email anonymously and email addresses inside and outside the Tor network. Tumble: A method to anonymize the source of your Bitcoins. Tx ID: Bitcoin transaction ID. 8
U W Utopia Marketplace: A market that had some connection to BMR, although the nature of the connection is somewhat unclear. This market had the advantage of being fully stocked with former BMR vendors at its public launch. It was rapidly taken down by the Dutch police not long after it was unveiled to the public. Whistleblowing: The disclosure by a person (usually an employee in a government agency or private enterprise) to the public or to those in authority, of mismanagement, corruption, illegality, or some other wrongdoing. V Vendors: Those who sell products on a market. This may be of an illegal nature, semi-legal nature, or completely legal nature. Because a vendor will be given a buyer’s full information to send the product to, any new vendor is under heavy scrutiny of being a scam or a ‘honeypot’ set up by law enforcement. Because of the difficult nature of the work, quality vendors tend to develop a cult following. Vendors Roundtable: A vendor-only discussion forum on Silk Road 1.0 and 2.0. Used on a site to allow vendors to bring up issues about the market or buyers without raising alarm in the general populace. Wall Street Market: The Wall Street Market was built around an idea to create a secure network complete with a quick and attractive system of trading products and payments. This marketplace carries a range of interesting features, including a unique award system, a completely transparent user rating system and the convenient EXIF remover for uploading images. Z ZULU Time: – UTC-0 Western European time zone. 3DD: 3 days delivery 9
Conclusion While you may not ever plan to visit the Dark Web, it’s important to know how it’s used and what sorts of information you can glean from it. Monitoring the Dark Web for hacker activity can help you anticipate cyber attacks against your organization and proactively mitigate threats. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to know if hackers were buying and selling stolen employee credentials from your organization? What if a hacker was trying to recruit an insider at your company to leak information? Regularly tracking activity on the Dark Web should be part of your cyber security strategy and methodology. We hope this glossary provides you with good insight and reference to understand how people interact with the Dark Web and black markets. PRODUCTS insightCloudSec insightVM insightIDR insightAppSec Threat Command insightConnect To learn more or start a free trial, visit: https://www.rapid7.com/try/insight/ SUPPORT Customer Portal Call 1.866.380.8113 10
Onion Browser: A web browser like the Tor Browser Bundle (TBB). This web browser is designed to work with the Tor network to browse hidden services and normal websites anonymously, without leaking user information. Onionland: A general term to describe Tor hidden services. OpDarknet: A campaign launched by Anonymous a couple years ago that
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